A bookworm claims the new Halifax library is too small as he has had to wait a couple of weeks for a book he requested.

But Calderdale Council says the new state-of-the-art library which opened last autumn has been designed to take lending into the digital age and old books are still available on request.

The man who complained: “At the old library if you requested a book that was not on the shelves they went to the storeroom. It took about 15 minutes. At the new library there is no storeroom. They keep books in a store at the old Heath school in Free School Lane in Halifax. They have built the library too small. I requested a book on the 11th of January and am still waiting for it to be available for me. I would have thought the brief for the new library would be to build a building that would be comparable or better. This is not the case.”

But Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Communities, Clr Susan Press, said: “The new Halifax Central Library and Archives has been designed to prioritise the most used customer services, with a particular focus on the availability of PCs and local history documents. It also now houses a state-of-the-art media store due to the popularity of digital items.

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“Our library reserve stock is a whole borough-wide facility with customers from all of our 22 libraries being able to request stock which is no longer kept on our library shelves. This is a service that many authorities have removed but we carefully retain our most-used items and make them available by free reservation for all our members for the initial year of relocation. We aim to have requested items to customers within three working days, but this can vary depending on the item and pick up location.”